


and the wind will whisper your name to me

by procellous



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spirited Away (2001) Fusion, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Era, Eucatastrophe, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, The Power Of Love, The power of friendship, various other unnamed characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14141379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procellous/pseuds/procellous
Summary: Éponine clings to the dragon, face buried in his mane.Nothing is forgotten, even if you can’t remember it.





	and the wind will whisper your name to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lady_ragnell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/gifts).



> well, would you look at that. I finished a thing.
> 
> I am not kidding about those Power of Friendship and Power of Love tags, this is 100% unironic Power of Friendship/Love!! no grimdark shit here. 
> 
> assorted warnings:  
> \- non-consensual body modification, in the form of characters turning into pigs  
> \- implied offscreen minor character death  
> \- discussed hypothetical animal death  
> \- past child abuse  
> \- Éponine's incredibly shitty present  
> \- child labor  
> \- non-graphic blood/injuries  
> \- non-graphic vomiting  
> \- mentions of starvation/food insecurity  
> \- mentions of Cosette's incredibly shitty past

Éponine sighs as the cart bumps over another root, bouncing everything in the back of the cart. It’s not a crowded cart. There’s her and Azelma and Gavroche, who is too young to really know what is going on, a few quilts, a box with her mother’s very small collection of novels, and a chest of clothes. Everything else was sold to pay off her father’s debts. 

It wasn’t enough, which is why they sold the inn and moved to Paris: her father thinks he can avoid his creditors there. 

“Are you sure this is the way?” her mother says. 

“It’s a shortcut,” says her father. Éponine is pretty sure he’s just lost. 

The woods are pleasant, though, despite the roots making them bump and bruise. The sun is shining through the trees, just enough to be warm without also being hot. Éponine tells Azelma stories quietly, so their parents can’t hear. Éponine doesn’t actually know many stories, so most of them she makes up on the spot, stitching together vague memories and bits of song. 

“What’re you girls gossiping about back there?” her father says. 

“Nothing, Papa,” Éponine says. Azelma’s shaking: their father’s always been rougher with her. 

“Didn’t sound like nothing to me! Sounded like a lot of giggling to me!”

“Éponine made a pun, Papa,” Azelma manages. Éponine tugs her into a hug, trying to reassure her.

“Just us silly girls, you know,” Éponine says. “Nothing in our heads but fluff.”

“Better not be fluff in there,” he scolds. “I need you two sharp, and watching for anyone who’s following us.”

“Yes, Papa,” they chorus. 

The cart lurches into motion again. The light tone of earlier is gone. Éponine and Azelma curl close to each other and try not to make noise. Azelma’s eyes are full of tears, and she’s biting her lip to hide her whimpers. 

“Hey, look at that,” her father says. “Looks like someone’s having a party.” The cart stops in front of a village. 

The smell of food makes Éponine’s stomach remember just how long it had been since she’d had anything to eat. 

They all pile out of the cart, Azelma holding Gavroche. It would be comical if it didn’t make Éponine’s heart contract. Gavroche is a small baby, but still too large for Azelma to carry comfortably. 

The village is empty as they walk through it. There are tables laden high with food: steaming dishes of meat and vegetables and sweets. Éponine’s stomach twists violently, like a rag being wrung dry. 

“Well!” her father says, clapping his hands together. “Looks like this is free for the taking. Dig in, everyone!”

They all start eating, taking huge bites of anything nearby. 

The hairs on the back of Éponine’s neck stand up. She’s spent her entire life around drunks and crooks and drunk crooks. When her instincts tell her to run, she does. 

She wishes she could ignore her instincts, to fill her belly the way Azelma is, and her heart breaks at how her sister’s eyes fill with tears as she eats. 

She slips away from her frantically feasting family.

.

There is a strange boy standing on the bridge in the dusk light. The fading tendrils of sunlight cling to his sandy hair. His green eyes are nearly glowing. 

Éponine is almost-eleven, which is practically an adult as far as her parents are concerned, and she knows to be careful of strange boys. She’s small for her age, and people don’t tend to notice her much—what’s one more underfed child in France?—and she’s good at watching and listening and waiting. She knows about young girls and strange boys, knows about where Cosette came from and why nobody wanted her, although she is a little fuzzy on some of the details. Her knowledge comes from tavern songs and boasts from the drunkards and vague hand gestures.

There’s something about flowers involved, or maybe heads. 

For a moment, the strange boy looks scared. It’s not an emotion people usually have around her, except for Azelma, and it flashes across his face like lightning in a storm. Then he looks angry, which is much more usual. 

“You shouldn’t be here! Go, no! It’s almost sundown, leave before it gets dark!”

It is, in fact, getting dark. Shadows pile up in corners and spill over into the streets. Lights are coming on, lanterns along the bridge, flickering candles lit along the road and in the windows of stores. 

“They’re lighting the lamps. Come on!” The boy grabs her by the shoulder and pushes her back towards the village. 

.

Her family is where she left them, more or less. There are four pigs wearing human clothes snuffling around the dishes for more food. Gavroche is a tiny piglet. Azelma is an undersized piglet, and the bruises under her eyes from never being able to rest seem to have transferred into her pig-form. 

Her parents are pigs, which isn’t much of a change. The swine wearing her father’s clothes squeals, loud and sharp. The sow wearing her mother’s dress knocks two bowls off the table, shattering on the ground, and stuffs her snout into a full cooked bird. 

Éponine runs. 

.

The village is no longer empty. Shadowy figures stand in the kitchens, steam billowing around them. They don’t have arms, just waving tendrils that they wrap around things to use them. They emerge from dark places: the piled-up shadows in the corners given shape.

The strange boy is nowhere to be seen. 

Her family is missing, their cart is missing. In fact, the entire forest that they travelled through is missing: there’s nothing but a large lake, lapping at her toes, and the distant lights of a city on the other side. 

A ship pulls up to the dock. The passengers start disembarking. She hesitates to call them people, because they’re so clearly not human. Some of them look more human than others, but they have faces that grin too wide and too easily, their hair too shiny and smooth, their eyes twin pinpricks. Others don’t look human at all. A few of them cast shadows that don’t match their shape or the light. 

Éponine has _good_ sight. 

She can’t help it: she curls up and sobs silently, her shoulders shaking and her lip aching from her teeth pressing down on it. 

“This isn’t real,” she tells herself. “This is a dream, it’s going to disappear. Disappear, disappear, disappear.”

Her palms start to prickle. She lifts them up to the light, and confusion turns to horror. They’re transparent. Her arms fade into nothingness. She can feel her hands, she knows they’re there, they just aren’t…visible. 

She screams. She’s not in the habit of screaming, and she’s not very good at it; it comes out muffled and whimpering. She sits by the shore of the dark lake, rocking on her heels and trying not to cry. She’s lost and scared and alone. Hunger is a living thing in her gut. The wind off the lake is cold, and bites through her threadbare jacket. 

The careful pressure of a hand on her shoulder breaks her from her miserable reverie, and she looks into the green eyes of the strange boy. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he says. “I’m a friend.”

Éponine doesn’t have much experience with friends, and she’s pretty sure she’s not supposed to be friends with boys. Her mother had told her that, and the various men in the inn had sniggered and made vague hand gestures in agreement. 

“Here, eat this,” he says, holding up a small red berry. “Unless you eat something from this world, you’ll disappear entirely.”

“No!” Éponine does not want to be a pig. She tries to push him away, but her arms go through him. It’s not a bad feeling, after the initial shock: like diving into cold water. 

“Don’t worry, you won’t turn into a pig,” he says, and pushes it past her lips. 

It’s bitter and makes her mouth sting. She swallows it as quickly as she can, grimacing at the taste. 

He holds up his hand, and his palm is warm under her fingertips. 

.

(Later, she’ll hold the memory of his small smile and the fondness in his eyes close to her chest, a burning ember in the winter. 

But that’s later; this is now.)

.

“Don’t breathe when we’re on the bridge. Even a tiny breath will break my spell. We don’t want anyone to see you.”

The bridge is covered with monsters: things with shaggy manes of hair that cover their faces, cloven-hoofed men who wear nothing and probably should, something with rings through it’s hands. They’re being greeted by frog men, who welcome them inside.

Éponine clings to the boy’s arm, the only admission of fear she can give. 

They step out into the road. At the start of the bridge, she takes a deep breath and clamps her hand over her nose and mouth to hold it in. 

They cross the bridge, footsteps nearly silent. Éponine’s grip on the boy’s arm tightens as they pass something that was not human and maybe never was. 

They’ve nearly made it across when a frog—a literal frog, who looks like a normal frog except for the clothes—jumps in front of them, talking to the boy rapidly and hovering in their faces. Éponine gasps, then remembers and clamps a hand over her face again. 

It’s too late.

“A human?” the frog says. 

The boy pushes out with one hand, trapping the frog in a dark bubble, and grabs Éponine with the other. 

It’s not running. Running would imply that her feet touch the ground at some point. There’s an impression of wind, flashes of color, and then they’re in a dark garden, hidden by a bush. The boy presses himself over her, shielding her. 

Inside the bathhouse, people are running around, shouting about a human intruder. Éponine can hear their frantic footfalls. 

“They know you’re here,” the boy says. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, tensing for the blow.

“No, Éponine, you did very well. Now listen. If you stay here, they’ll find you. I’ll distract them while you get away.”

“Don’t, please, stay with me.” It comes out much more pleading than she intends, and she tenses. This would be when her parents would start yelling. 

“You don’t have a choice if you want to survive here and save your siblings.”

“So that wasn’t a dream,” she murmurs. “They really did turn into pigs.”

“Listen carefully.” He presses his fingertips to her forehead, brushing aside her bangs. “After I’m gone, go through the back gate.” She can see it in her mind’s eye, unbolting and opening. “Take the stairs all the way down, to the boiler room where they stoke the fires. Look for the boilerman, and ask him for work. If he refuses, keep asking. If you don’t work, Yubaba will turn you into an animal.”

“Yubaba?”

“She’s the sorceress who rules our world. She’ll try to trick you into leaving, but keep asking for work. It’s hard, but it will protect you.” His hand squeezes hers gently. “Remember that I’m your friend, Éponine.”

“Wait,” she says, eyes narrowing, “How do you know my name?”

“You told me, a long time ago.” 

“Well, what’s yours?” 

Sadness flickers across his face. “Go, Éponine,” he says, instead of answering the question. 

.

The boilerman is terrifying, with his bushy mustache and tinted spectacles and his many arms that end in three-fingered hands. She’s pretty sure he has six arms, but she might be wrong: they keep moving, and she can’t keep track of them.

The sootballs underfoot are almost cute, but she doesn’t have the time or energy to focus on them. 

Fear and hunger coil in her gut like twin serpents. 

“Are you the boilerman?” she asks. “I was sent here to ask for work!”

“I am the boilerman, slave to the boilers that heat the baths.” He looks down at her like she’s a particularly interesting insect. 

“Please let me work here!”

He laughs, loud and sudden. “I’ve got all the help I need! There’s soot everywhere. There’s no work for you here, try somewhere else.”

A panel in the wall slides open to reveal a young woman carrying a tray and a basket.  

“Meal time!” she calls. She hands a bowl to the boilerman from the tray. “Where’s your bowl? I keep telling you to leave it out.” The boilerman hands her an empty bowl. 

The woman tosses tiny star-shaped candies to the sootballs, who scoop them up eagerly and dance around with them. They’re cute, Éponine decides. Like the fluffy kitten Azelma found one day. She had wanted to keep it, but Éponine knew that their father would do something like kill it and serve it for dinner, and had made Azelma keep it secret. 

They saw it around, sometimes. It got picked up by the miller, and grew into a sleek-furred mouser.

The woman notices Éponine, and startles. 

“The human! You’re going to be in trouble, they’re having a fit about it upstairs!”

“She’s my granddaughter,” the boilerman says, around a mouthful of food. 

“Your granddaughter!”

“She says she wants work, but I’ve got all the help I need. Could you take her to Yubaba for me?”

“Not a chance!” The woman crosses her arms and glares. “Yubaba would kill me.”

“Not even for this?” One of his arms stretch out, waving a burnt lizard in front of her. “Charcoal roasted newt, highest quality.”

Éponine doesn’t think it looks good at all, though she’s hungry enough she’d probably eat it anyway. The woman looks at it like it’s a rare delicacy. 

“If you want work, you have to sign a contract with Yubaba,” the boilerman explains. “Might as well try your luck.”

“Fine!” the woman snaps, snatching the newt from the boilerman and tucking it into her skirt. “You there, follow me.”

.

The bathhouse is the biggest building Éponine has ever been in. Éponine’s education has mostly been on the practical subjects of running an inn, picking drunk’s pockets, and not getting hit, so she doesn’t have much to compare it too, but she thinks it looks like the palace in a fairy story. Everything is busy and moving, but the floors are shiny-clean and there’s no stains on anything. The walls are painted with flowers and clouds, birds and dragons. Her parents’ inn was never like this: it was always full of drunks and mess, broken glass and scraps of food.  
There are so many rooms and hallways that she wonders how anyone finds their way around. The woman leads her without hesitating for a moment. Éponine tries to match her quick, confident strides. 

She feels grubby. Her hands and knees are skinned, there’s dirt on her face, and her clothes are worn and patched. She doesn’t belong here, where everything is clean and gleaming and steam floats up from large tubs.

The main characters of fairy tales were poor and dirty too, but they were nice. Éponine’s pretty sure she’s not nice enough to be in a fairy tale, except as the mean older sisters. Besides, she’s the eldest. Eldest children always fail. 

It’s a good thing her life isn’t a fairy tale.

.

The doors to Yubaba’s rooms are enormous and opulent. They don’t really fit with the rest of the building, which is wide, soaring spaces. It’s fancy, but clean. This has details which have details. It’s so fancy that it wraps around and becomes boring again. 

She tries the handle, and finds that it’s locked. 

“Can’t you knock?” the knocker says. “What a rude little girl.”

Éponine stares. Knockers aren’t something she’s familiar with, but she’s pretty sure that they don’t usually talk or move. 

The doors swing open, revealing room after room. Chandeliers light themselves, revealing that the rooms are full of clutter. Gorgeous, expensive _clutter_. The light glints and glimmers and gleams off of gold and jewels. 

She doesn’t have time to stare, though, because something grabs the front of her dress and hauls her inside. 

It’s unpleasant. When the boy had pulled her into the garden, it felt warm and safe, like being carried. This is cold and makes her skin prickle with goosebumps. 

She can hear the doors slamming and latching behind her, and then she’s on her hands and knees on a thick, plush carpet with a feeling like she’s going to throw up. There’s a fire behind her, she can hear it crackling and snapping, but it produces no heat. 

The room is dark: the only light is from the fireplace and above the desk where a small old woman is writing something. Her hands are covered in heavy rings. Account books, Éponine realizes as she sees the small bag of coins she’s counting. 

“Please give me a job.”

The old woman, who must be Yubaba, looks up and draws her finger in a straight line. Her nails are long and sharp, almost claws. There’s a strange sound and her mouth is sealed shut like a mended seam. She can’t pry her lips open, can’t make a noise. 

“Why do I need a weakling like you?” Yubaba asks. “Besides, this is no place for humans. Millions of spirits come here to purge themselves of toil and care. Your family, my goodness, they had some nerve, gorging themselves on our guests’ food like a bunch of pigs. Fair’s fair, I’d say. As for you, you’ll never see your world again either. Maybe I’ll turn you into a pig as well. Or a lump of coal.”

Éponine thinks of the coal that the sootballs tossed into the boiler and shivers. 

Yubaba cackles. “Trembling, are you? Still, I am impressed you made it this far. Someone must have helped you. Tell me, child, I must reward your friend. Who was it?”

Éponine recognizes the smile on Yubaba’s face. It’s one her mother wore often. 

The seam on her mouth is broken with a gesture from Yubaba. “Please give me a job!”

“Not that again!”

“I want to work here!”

“Shut your mouth!” It’s like a great wind is coming from the windows. The curtains are fluttering, the papers on Yubaba’s desk go flying, and then the woman grabs her skirts and flies across the room, touching down inches from Éponine’s face. Yubaba’s head is the same size as Éponine’s upper body, though they’re nearly the same height. 

“Why on earth should I hire you? Anyone can see you’re a spoiled, lazy, useless crybaby. What job could I possibly have for someone like you?” Yubaba jabs at Éponine’s stomach with her nail-talons. “Or maybe I’ll find you the nastiest job I’ve got, and work you night and day until you breathe your very last breath!” Her nails drag across Éponine’s throat. 

“I want a job,” she repeats, because if Éponine can do anything, it’s be stubborn. 

Yubaba sighs, an angry huff of air. She waves a hand, the room setting itself to rights, and a single piece of paper flies into Éponine’s hands. 

“There’s your contract, sign your name,” she says. “One complaint from you about anything, and I’ll turn you into a piglet like your brother and sister.”

Éponine can read, and knows she should read anything before signing it, but the letters all curl around each other and look the same, and she doesn’t know half the words anyway.  
“What a ridiculous oath I took,” Yubaba complains. “Having to give work to anyone who asks for it.”

She signs her name in careful print: ÉPONINE THÉNARDIER.

Yubaba waves a hand, the paper sliding out of Éponine’s grip and into her hands. “Éponine,” she says. “What a fancy name. It belongs to me now.”

The letters peel themselves off the page and into Yubaba’s hand. 

“You called for me?” the strange boy says, appearing out of nowhere. She startles. She’s pretty sure that Yubaba didn’t call anyone. He doesn’t look like he used to, though: his eyes are cold and hard, little chips of green ice. 

“See to her,” Yubaba orders, waving a lazy hand. “She’s starting work today.”

“Follow me,” he orders. He leads her from Yubaba’s office and down into the bathhouse again.

.

“Um,” she says. “Do you know if—”

“No unnecessary chatter,” he orders. His voice is flat.

Éponine falls silent, feeling very small. 

_“Remember that I’m your friend.”_

.

“Are there two of him?” she asks, later that night while the young woman from the boiler room—her mentor, now—is trying to find a uniform small enough to fit her. 

“Two of who?”

“The boy, the one who assigned me to you. Does he have a twin, or something?”

The woman snorts. “Him? No. Can you imagine? One of him is enough.”

He had been so kind before, and then so cold after. 

“He’s Yubaba’s apprentice, does her dirty work for her. Stay away from him, you can’t trust a word he says.”

“Oh,” she says. He had been the one to tell her to get a job here, he had been the one to lead her to Yubaba. 

Her father would be disappointed at how easily she was tricked. 

She goes to sleep cold, even under the quilt. 

.

The door to the dormitory opens a crack, and careful feet step between the sleeping women. She screws her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep, as a gentle hand is laid on her shoulder. 

“Meet me at the bridge at dawn,” a soft voice says. “I’ll take you to see your family.”

The hand disappears, and the boy slips away.

.

The morning air is cool and still. Everything and everyone in the bathhouse is asleep. She slips easily through the halls, down the stairs, and out to the bridge. 

The boy is there. She had almost expected him not to be, but he is. 

“Follow me,” he says, and she does. He leads her through the gardens again, and they look different in the light of day. She hadn’t seen them enough at night to really have formed an opinion on them, but now she decides that they’re beautiful. Large flowers bloom on the bushes, and the hedges are tall but welcoming. It’s much more colorful now that there’s light to see it. 

The sties smell like pig. She doesn’t really know why she expected anything else. The boy leads her to one of the pens, where a pair of piglets sleep, curled into each other. 

“They don’t remember they were ever human,” the boy says. 

.

“Éponine,” the boy whispers to her, in the shadow of a hedge. Flowers bloom around them. A tree overhead sheds a few petals, and they land in his hair. 

“Éponine?” she repeats. “Éponine, that’s my name!”

“Yubaba controls us by stealing our names. Keep yours a secret. Without your name, you’ll never be able to find your way back home.” The boy sighs. “Yesterday you asked me what my name is. I no longer remember it. But it’s strange. I remember yours.”

.

A dragon twists into the sky, long and pale, scales reflecting the sun.

Éponine watches until she can’t make him out anymore.

.

It rains that night, long and hard. The moon shines weakly through a gap in the clouds, reflects in the puddles, distorting and wobbling as the raindrops make ripples. 

.

Éponine works. Her arms aren’t used to hard labor, even after all her chores at home. She bites her tongue, remembering that she can’t complain. Still, when she falls behind the other girls while scrubbing the floor, when she slips and falls, when the other workers laugh at her, she remembers Azelma and Gavroche, two small piglets. 

She gets up again. 

“You two are on the big tub tonight,” a frog-man says, walking past with a page of notes in his hand. 

“What?” says her mentor. “That’s frog work!”

“Orders from Yubaba,” the frog says, which makes her mentor grumble. “And no shirking!”

.

The big tub is possibly the only place in the bathhouse that’s filthy. It’s caked with several layers of mud, and grass coats everything: the tub, the floor, even up the walls. 

“Just look at this. Hasn’t been scrubbed in ages.” Frog-men peek out from behind the walls and snicker. Her mentor glares them into silence. 

They set to work. Her mentor teaches her work-songs as they clean the room. Grass is swept away, dumped in large piles to be mulch for the garden as they sing about men coming home from war. They scrub the tub itself, which is possibly the most disgusting thing Éponine has ever done. Éponine is up to her ankles in sludge. 

For the first time in a long time, she thinks about Cosette. She hasn’t had cause to, really: Cosette left with some rich stranger, presumably to work for him instead of the Thénardiers, and Éponine didn’t think much of her when she was there and thought even less of her now that she was gone.

Cosette hadn’t complained about hard work, although Cosette wasn’t a normal child anyway. She carried around a knife like it was a doll and chopped the heads off flies. 

“This tub is reserved for our filthiest guests,” her mentor says, which explains why the tub itself is so filthy. “Hey, go to the foreman and get a tag for an herbal bath.” She lifts Éponine out of the tub, and she tumbles down the outside.

.

In the village in the shadow of the bathhouse, shutters are closed, curtains are drawn, doors are latched. The last lights are blown out. 

Something is coming, something that oozes a trail of sludge behind it, something that lumbers and makes the ground shake. 

.

The foreman tells her no, but the foreman is also a busy frog-man and easily distracted. Éponine slips a handful of tags into the pocket of her skirt while he’s not looking and goes back to her mentor. 

“Wow,” she says, as Éponine hands one to her. “This is a really good one.” Éponine can feel herself glowing at the praise. 

Her mentor shows her how to send the tag off and get hot water. The water that comes out is murky but sweet-smelling, and steam rises from it. Éponine has never been around so much hot water. Hot water, in her experience, is something that comes from hauling in buckets full of cold water and heating them on the fire. A hot bath is an exhausting thing; a tub this size would take hours to fill by hand. 

The boiler must heat up the water, she realizes, and then pipes carry it around the bathhouse to be used in the baths. How the water doesn’t cool down while it’s in the pipes and how the pipes actually work are still mysteries to her, but she lets herself feel a little clever for figuring out why they don’t need to carry kettles of hot water around. 

There’s so much water. It feels impossibly decadent to Éponine, who’s used to taking cold water baths about once a month and hot water baths once a year. 

“With water this murky, who’s going to see the sludge?” her mentor says, sliding gracefully down the side of the tub. “I’m going to get breakfast.”

.

The workers try to wave the spirit away, but faint when it gets too close. 

“A stink spirit,” one of them tells Yubaba.

She frowns. “Stink spirits feel different. Well, now that it’s here, better go greet it!”

.

Éponine tries not to breathe as she shows the spirit to the full bath. The putrid trail it leaves behind stains the floors and the walls. Paint peels as it passes, curling off in large strips. 

The spirit pours itself into the bath with a sigh, sending a wave of sludge across the room. Éponine is knee-deep in the muck and splattered with it even before she slips and crashes down into it. Her face is spared, at least, but she can feel it in her hair. She will never feel clean again, she’s certain of it. 

She still has the tags for more water, hidden in her pocket. She struggles through the muck to the hidden catch. The first tag she tries slips through her filthy fingers and falls down the shaft, clattering into the darkness. The next one she manages to get sent off, and the fresh water rushes down into the tub. Unfortunately, she slips in as well. 

Something wraps around her waist. It’s a vaguely familiar feeling, being pulled out of the muck and into the air. The spirit holds her under the running water, rinsing away the grime caking her.  
There’s something stuck into the spirit’s side, she realizes. She can get her hands around it, but she can’t pull it out. 

“Hey!” she calls. “There’s a thorn or something in him!”

“A thorn?” her mentor says, reappearing. 

“I can’t get it out!”

.

In the end, it takes everyone, hauling in unison, to pull it out. Yubaba directs them from the top of a wall. 

It’s not a thorn. It’s a tangle of things: a horse’s harness, a tub, metal devices too rusted and twisted to be identified, fishing wire and rags tangling it all together. Once it starts coming out, it doesn’t stop. There’s a heap of it by the foot of the bath, pushing the other workers out of the room. 

There’s a small sigh as Éponine works the last of it out, a little spurt of what might be blood, and the looming shape of the spirit melts under the water. The floor floods, washing the trash away, and Éponine is wrapped in a bubble of water. 

There’s something like a face floating where the spirit was, old and brown and wrinkled. Bushy white eyebrows sit above empty eye sockets. It looks a little like a mask. 

“Well done,” he says, fading away. 

The bubble melts, and Éponine realizes that she’s holding something: a greenish ball. It has the general texture of a moss-covered rock. 

The steam fades, the flood water washing away to reveal gold dust and nuggets covering the floor. The workers rush forward, nearly trampling each other in their haste to get at the gold. 

“Quiet!” Yubaba orders. “Our guest is still with us.”

The water in the tub bubbles and rolls, and a dragon bursts out of the water, laughing. He seems to be made out of water, with only small patches of white scales. White fur lines his spine. 

The main gates burst open and he flies out, twisting and turning. His body seems to go on forever. The assembled crowd of workers and guests cheer. 

“You’re a wonder!” Yubaba crows, wrapping Éponine in a tight hug. “You’ve made us a fortune! That was the guardian of a great river. Drinks are on the house tonight!” The workers cheer. “And hand over all that gold!” The cheers turn to moans. 

Éponine tucks the ball into her pocket, and smiles. 

.

Éponine sits on the balcony, watching the clouds pass over the moon. Her feet kick in the empty air below her. The lights of the dormitory are out; the only light is the distant haze on the shore and the full moon, hanging over the water. 

The rains flooded the river. She wonders if this river has a guardian as well, if that guardian is glutted as much as the river is. She pictures a dragon that’s fat and slow, and giggles. Her mother used to complain about water weight, but she would have nothing on a dragon that’s all fat from rain. 

“Thinking about Yubaba’s apprentice?” her mentor asks. The woman sits down next to Éponine, holding a plate of bread covered in jam. “Here, I swiped some from the kitchens.”

“Thanks,” Éponine says, taking one and chewing it thoughtfully. “And not really. Though, he did miss all of the exitement.”

“Eh, he goes off sometimes. Probably doing something bad for Yubaba.”

Far below them, a ferry bobs in the waves, lights dancing on the water.

“Someday I’m going to ride that ferry,” she says. “I’m going to get out of here and go to that town, just you wait.”

Éponine stares at the smudge of light on the horizon. Her parents had been moving them to Paris, to escape her father’s creditors. What was Paris like? She had never bothered to wonder until now; her philosophy had been that there’s no point in wondering about the future: if you imagine something good, it’ll be bad; if you imagine something bad, it’ll be worse. Her mind was full of keeping track of her father and mother, to avoid them, and keeping track of her sister and brother, to mind them. 

Now, there is a choice. Now she might be able to win her siblings’s freedom, and what will they do then? Continue on to Paris as though nothing has changed? She knows there’s not much in Paris for three orphans; there’s not much anywhere in the world for three poor orphans. 

And if she doesn’t win their freedom? Working in the bathhouse isn’t so bad, really, and she’s kept her name. She could stay here. She’d end up in a workhouse anyway, really, and this is a lot better than a workhouse. And, eventually, her siblings would be slaughtered and cooked and eaten. 

The thought of Azelma, who likes nothing more than having Éponine braid flowers into her hair while telling her half-remembered and half-improvised stories, and Gavroche, who can get into all kinds of trouble even though he’s too young to knot string, just…not existing anymore is almost enough to make her vomit. She can’t abandon them, no matter what. 

She’s the eldest. It’s her job to keep them safe. 

She eats three large bites of the bread, chewing quickly to escape the tightness in her throat and chest. 

.

Éponine watches off the balcony. It’s midmorning when she makes her way back to the balcony off of the dormitories, the swollen river nearly an ocean. (She’s never actually _seen_ the ocean, but she’s pretty sure it’s like this: the world falling away into endless blue, the horizon invisible, just a gentle curve up off the end of the world and up into the sky.)

There’s a dragon twisting in the air. At first she thinks that it’s shedding, little white fluttery things all around it—do dragons shed?—but as she watches, it becomes clear that the whatever-they-are are attacking him. 

The dragon dives into the water with a splash, and the fluttery things stop at the surface of the water. They stream after him like a flock of birds. The dragon flies straight up, skimming the wall of the bathhouse—Éponine leans back to avoid getting slammed in the face by either a large dragon moving at very fast or the not-birds chasing him—and then dives back down. 

“Hey!” she shouts, “Hey! Over here!”

The dragon flies over her head, landing among the beds and bedding, and Éponine tries to close the balcony doors before the not-birds can get in. They plaster themselves to the wall and door and Éponine, and she realizes that they’re slips of paper, cut to look vaguely like birds. The ones that remained whole float away on the breeze; the torn shreds of the rest flutter weakly and stay where they are. 

The dragon looks entirely out of place in the dormitory, and it’s only a tiny bit because the dragon is the strange boy, Yubaba’s apprentice, and thus does not belong in the girls’ dormitories. She knows he’s been in them before, to tell her to meet him on the bridge, but boys don’t belong in girls’ dormitories, and the boss’s apprentice doesn’t belong in the workers’ dormitories. 

The vast majority of it is because he’s an enormous snake with chicken legs and fur that’s bleeding all over the quilts. 

Éponine is aware that she probably should be afraid of the enormous snake with legs and fur that’s bleeding all over the quilts and could probably swallow her in one bite, even though he’s stumbling and can hardly stand, but she’s not. Maybe it’s because she’s pretty sure the dragon and the boy are the same. Maybe it’s because she’s spent her entire life afraid; afraid of her parents, afraid of feeling like she’s swimming but barely managing to keep her head above water while something grabs her ankles and tries to pull her down, and she’s so damn tired of being afraid. 

The dragon lunges, bursting back out through the balcony and splattering blood everywhere. Éponine sees him slam into the stone wall with a sickening thump, and then fly up further, crashing into Yubaba’s rooms. 

Éponine is so damn tired of being afraid. 

She runs down the hall, bare feet slapping against the wood, climbs up the stairs (and up and up and up, until her legs ache and her feet are sore and she feels like she can hardly move, and then up a bit further) and doesn’t notice the paper bird clinging to her shoulder. 

There’s blood on her hands. 

.

Yubaba’s rooms are a maze. More than once she literally runs into walls. Everything looks the same, after a while. She’s pretty sure she’s running in circles. 

She stumbles into a room that seems to go on forever. She steps out into the carpet, and realizes that the walls are all mirrors: polished mirrors cleaner than anything Éponine has ever seen.  
They aren’t regular mirrors, though. They each show a different girl standing in the center of the room. They all look like older versions of Éponine herself. 

One of them is wearing the bathhouse uniform, hands calloused and arms strong. Another one is dirty and bruised, her dress grey and worn. One is wearing boy’s clothes, hair tucked up in her hat. One of them is wearing a fancy dress, but still looks hunted. 

She spins around. Each one is an Éponine. Most of them look unhappy in some degree or other. 

There’s one that doesn’t. She stands straight and tall, her hair braided neatly and evenly, which has never been true of Éponine—she can’t braid her own hair that neatly, Azelma doesn’t have the patience for it, and her mother might have, years ago, but not anymore. 

Her hands are covered in lace gloves. Her dress is fancier than anything Éponine’s seen before, though not the fanciest in the room. There’s touches of lace at the collar and cuffs, a ring on her finger and a necklace of pearls around her neck. 

Éponine swallows. 

The woman moves when she moves, the same movements and speed, but where Éponine is clumsy and coltish, the woman in the mirror is graceful and elegant. 

Éponine touches the mirror. She half-expects something to change, some magical ripples that will lead her into this Éponine’s life, but the mirror is cold and unyielding. 

The dragon might be dying. She doesn’t have time to wonder about the future. She’s never had time to wonder about the future; the present has always been too urgent.

Éponine turns away. 

.

Yubaba’s office is the same as it was. The desk is overflowing with papers and boxes and bags. There is, however, the addition of a dragon bleeding out into the carpet. 

That’s going to be impossible to clean, Éponine thinks. 

Part of the carpet has been rolled up to reveal a long, smooth shaft that Éponine is certain wasn’t there before. 

The little paper bird unsticks from the back of her head and floats down to the floor. An old woman floats up from where the bird touched. She looks like Yubaba, down to the rings on her fingers, but she’s not. 

“Who are you?” Éponine asks. 

“Yubaba’s older twin sister. Thanks to you, I’ve had a good tour of the place. Now, hand over the dragon.”

Éponine’s arms tighten around him. “What are you going to do? He needs help.”

“That dragon’s a thief. He works for my sister, and stole a valuable seal from my house.”

“No, he’d never do that! He’s too kind.”

“All dragons are kind. Kind and stupid…and eager to learn my sister’s magical ways. This boy will do anything that greedy woman wants. Now stand aside. It’s too late for him anyway. The seal he stole had a powerful protection seal. The thief will die soon.”

The dragon lifts his head briefly, baring his teeth in a grimace. His tail lashes, striking the slip of paper and crushing it. 

“Oh dear, that was careless,” the witch says, disappearing. 

The movement overbalances him, and the dragon falls into the shaft, Éponine in tow.

.

Éponine clings to the dragon, face buried in his mane. 

Nothing is forgotten, even if you can’t remember it. 

.

They tumble down to the boiler room, where the boilerman sits. Éponine crashes onto him; the dragon, twisting and writhing, crashes to the floor. He thrashes in pain, blood splattering on the walls. His green eyes are frighteningly blank. There’s no recognition in them at all, only pain and rage. 

“This is serious,” the boilerman says, moving from his perch for the first time Éponine can remember. His legs are curled up tightly behind him; he balances on his six spindly arms. “Something inside him is eating him up.”

“Inside him?” Éponine repeats. 

“It’s a strong spell. There’s nothing I can do.”

Éponine is tired of being scared and helpless. “Hey,” she says to the writhing dragon, “The river guardian gave me this. Maybe it will help.”

She struggles to lift his jaw open. His teeth are clamped shut. 

“You need to eat it,” she says. “It’ll be okay, but you have to eat it.”

She manages to open his jaw, shoving the little green ball down his throat quickly. 

“Swallow it!”

He roars, loud and bloodstained, and she holds his mouth closed. Her arms barely touch, but she twists her fingers together and clings with all her strength. He writhes and thrashes, tail slamming into the walls and sending a rain of splinters down, until he vomits up something dark and oozing. 

It steams, revealing a gold seal and a black slug. 

The slug looks around and then squirms away. 

“It’s getting away!” the boilerman says, “There, over there!”

Éponine snatches up the seal and chases after the slug. It twists and turns, dodging her, until her foot slams down on it. 

Shivers run up her spine. Her foot is covered with slime. 

The boilerman makes a slashing motion with one hand, and something in the air eases. 

“He stole this from Yubaba’s sister,” Éponine explains, holding up the seal. 

“From Zeniba? That’s a witch’s seal. Precious loot, I’d say.”

The dragon shimmers and disappears, replaced by the boy, lying facedown in a puddle of blood. His clothes are stained. 

They turn him over carefully. Cuts on his face and arms bleed sluggishly. 

“He’s not breathing!”

“He is,” the boilerman corrects, “But he’s very weak and ill.” He tips a bowl of broth into the boy’s lax mouth. Some of it spills down, drops running down his chin. The cuts on his face are already scabbing over. 

The boilerman pulls a quilt down from a drawer Éponine hadn’t realized was there, and covers the boy with it. 

“He just turned up one day, you know, same as you. He said he wanted to learn magic. I tried to warn him: being a sorcerer’s apprentice is dangerous business. But he wouldn’t listen. He kept saying that he lost his home. So he signed up to be Yubaba’s apprentice. He got paler and paler as time went by, and got a sharp gleam in his eye.”

Éponine thinks about the boy in the garden, moonlight making him glow, the gentle pressure of his hands.

“I’m going to give this back,” she decides. “And I’m going to ask her to help him. Do you know where she lives?”

“To Zeniba’s house? That’s one scary sorceress.”

“Please, he helped me. I want to help him.”

“Well, getting there’s one thing. It’s getting back that’s the problem.” He rummaged through a drawer, tossing out odds and ends—scraps of paper, an old, worn book, something beaded, and finally two small coins. “Here we are! This will pay the fare.” He dropped them in her outstretched hand. 

She tucked the coins and the seal into her pocket. 

“Take the ferry all the way to Swamp Bottom, the sixth stop. Be careful. There used to be a ferry back, but these days it’s one way only. Still sure you want to go?”

Éponine nods. “I’m certain.” She kneels beside the boy, careful to step around the puddle of blood. He’s still and lifeless under the quilt. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t die, got it?”

.

The ferry dock is a simple platform of wood set out in the flooded river. Éponine waits and watches for the ferry, wishing she could do something faster. 

The boy might be dying right now, and the best thing she can do for him is to stand and wait. 

The ferry comes, and Éponine pays the fare. It’s fairly crowded, shadowy faceless people lining the rails. They pass small islands—really just patches of ground that aren’t underwater: when the river isn’t flooded with rain, they’re probably hills. The water is clear and clean, moving slightly as the wind blows it. Passengers get off as they reach various stops, only sometimes carrying bags. A shadow shaped like a small girl watches her from one of the stops.

The sixth stop comes, and she’s the only person left in the ferry. The ferryman tips his hat as she steps off, and she’s alone in the growing night.  
Something by her feet meows. 

.

The boy’s eyes open slowly. He aches all over, and his arms are covered with fading scabs. The boilerman is asleep, mustache fluttering as he snores. 

He shakes the man’s shoulder gently, and then more forcefully, until he startles awake. 

“Oh, you’re awake,” the boilerman says. 

“Where’s the girl? What happened?”

“Don’t you remember anything?”

“No. Just fragments.” Blood and pain and fear, mostly. Dumb animal confusion. “She kept calling my name in the darkness. I followed her voice and woke up here.”

.

“So that girl ran away and abandoned her own siblings,” Yubaba says. “We’ll have suckling pig tonight.”

“Wait!” the boy says, stepping out of the shadows. “Don’t you see? She played a trick on you. She’s with Zeniba. I’ll bring her back to you, but you must send her and her siblings back to their world.”

“Well now, someone’s defiant. What about you, hmm? Maybe I’ll send them back and tear you to pieces!”

The boy’s expression doesn’t shift. 

.

It’s a pleasant night, the full moon shining brightly and the stars twinkling overhead. The air is warm and still. 

There’s a cat curling around Éponine’s ankles. 

“Hello,” it says. Éponine has seen too many weird things in the past few days to even startle at a talking cat. “Do you remember me?”

Éponine frowns. It’s a sleek-furred tabby. There are probably a thousand of them in France. 

“You’re that cat that lived in the mill. Azelma found you when you were a kitten.”

“And you told her that your parents would drown me if they found me, and you took me to the mill. There were a lot of fat mice there. I’m grateful.”

“So what are you doing here, then?”

“Repaying you. I don’t suppose you’d like a nice fat mouse?”

There have been times in her life when a mouse would have been welcome. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

The cat murrs. “So, what brings you to Swamp Bottom?”

“I’m looking for Zeniba.”

“Oooh, Zeniba. I like her. She always leaves a little dish of cream out for us cats.”

“How did you get here, anyway?”

“Cats go where they want.” It trots out in front of her, tail waving in the air like a flag. “Come on, I know the way.”

Zeniba’s house does not look like a witch lives there. It’s a sturdily-built large cottage, with a thatched roof and a low chimney. A lantern hangs above the gate. 

The door is painted with flowers, and swings open before she can even knock. She’s reminded uncomfortably of Yubaba’s rooms, but the cottage is warm and cozy, simply made and furnished. There’s no gold, no gems, no opulence. There are herbs drying from the rafters, a spinning wheel in the corner. Half-finished lace is pinned to a bobbin pillow. 

She steps inside, and Zeniba pushes the door shut behind her. 

“So you made it,” she says. “Have a seat, I’ll make some tea.”

“Zeniba,” Éponine says, holding out the seal. “Yubaba’s apprentice stole this. I came to give it back.”

Zeniba holds it up. “Do you know what this is?” she asks.

“I know it’s very precious,” she says, dodging the question. 

“You held this and nothing happened to you,” she says, a question in her voice. “Wait, the protection spell is gone!”

Éponine thinks of the black slug. “I’m sorry. There was a weird black slug thing, I squashed it.”

“Squashed it!” Zeniba roars with laughter. “My sister snuck that slug into the dragon to control him. Squashed it!”

.

“My sister and I are two halves of a whole,” Zeniba says, as they sit down to tea. “But we don’t get along. You know what bad taste she has.” Éponine thinks of the lavish clutter in the maze of identical rooms, and agrees. “Sorceress twins are just a recipe for trouble. I’d like to help you, dear, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s one of our rules. You’ll have to save your siblings and your dragon boyfriend by yourself.”

“Can’t you even give me a hint? I feel like the dragon and I met a long time ago, but I can’t remember him.”

“Oh, once you’ve met someone you never really forget it. Everyone you’ve ever met is kept inside you.”

.

The bobbins rattle together as they’re released, picked up, and moved. Zeniba hums as she works. Éponine perches on a stool, knees tucked up to her chest, and tries to think back. All her thoughts keep weaving back to Azelma and Gavroche, back to the anxiety and fear. 

“I’m going back,” she says. “The dragon might die while I’m here, and they might eat my siblings!” She can’t stop the tears that form in her eyes. She scrubs them away, but they only come faster and thicker until she’s doubled over with the weight of them. 

The cat rubs its cheek against her leg, purring. 

Zeniba snips at the lace. “Here,” she says, handing Éponine a ribbon. “Use this to tie back your hair. I wove a spell into it, it’ll protect you. 

The ribbon is soft and fine. Minuscule flowers are woven into it, their petals smaller than her smallest nail. She unties her hair and rebraids it, the ribbon tying it off. 

“Thank you,” she says. It feels insufficient, but she doesn’t have any better words.

The windows rattle in a sudden wind. 

“What good timing!” Zeniba says. “We have another guest, let him in.”

Éponine opens the door and finds the dragon inside. He’s healed, his scales shining in the moonlight, rainbows caught in their surface like mother-of-pearl. There’s not a scratch nor a drop of blood on him. 

She doesn’t intend to, but she runs to him and hugs him tightly, pressing her face against the delicate scales on his. 

“Good timing, I’d say,” Zeniba says, stepping out of the cottage. “I don’t blame you for what you did, young man, but be sure to protect this girl, you here?”

“Thank you for everything,” Éponine says, embracing the old woman. “My name is Éponine.”

“What a pretty name!” she says, cupping Éponine’s face. “You take good care of it. Now, off you go, you two.”

“Goodbye, Zeniba!”

.

The ground is far below them. The wind whips at her face, making her braid fly out behind them. 

She leans forward, pressing her body against the dragon’s spine. Her fingers curl around his horns. 

For a moment, she’s not in midair, she’s underwater. The water rushes past, tangling her hair. 

“I don’t really remember this,” she begins, “But my mother told me about it. When I was little, my parents and I went to a river, and I fell in. There’s no river there anymore, it got dammed up, but I just remembered. The river…it was called Combeferre. Your real name is Combeferre, isn’t it?”

The dragon seems to freeze. Scales burst from his face and body, filling the air. 

For a moment, she regrets doing this in midair. 

The dragon disappears in a burst of scales. and Combeferre is human again. 

He tangles their fingers together, grinning. “Thank you, Éponine!” he says, pressing their foreheads together. There are tears in his eyes. There are probably tears in hers, too. 

“Um. We’re still falling.”

“Oh! Right.” Combeferre looks mildly embarrassed. He shifts his grip on her hand, and they start soaring again.

Clouds swirl around them. The moon is bright overhead. Combeferre is still holding her hand. 

.

The sun is peeking over the horizon when they land, feet touching down on the bridge. Yubaba is pacing in front of a dozen piglets, lined up in rows. 

“Yubaba!” Combeferre calls. “Remember your promise! Send Éponine and her siblings back into the human world!”

“Sorry,” she says, sounding not the slightest bit sorry, “But it’s not that simple. This world has rules, you know. I can’t break the spell otherwise.”

The assembled crowd of workers boos.

“Shut up!”

“I’ll do it,” Éponine says. She squeezes Combeferre’s hand and lets go. “I know about the rule. I’ll do what it takes.”

Yubaba harrumphs. “Well, you’ve got guts, at least. I’ve brought your contract.” She holds up a roll of paper. “Pick your siblings out, and you can go home.”

Éponine looks at the piglets. The piglets look at her, and around them. They all look the same.

“You get one guess,” Yubaba says. 

“I…I can’t do it. None of these piglets are my siblings.”

“Is that _really_ your answer?”

She frowns. “Yes.”

The contract in Yubaba’s hand bursts. The piglets transform back into workers. Everyone cheers. 

“Thank you, everyone!” she calls.

“Alright, you win, now get out of here!” Yubaba snarls, but there’s fondness in it.

“Thank you, Yubaba.”

She waves to everyone as she runs back across the bridge to Combeferre. They run, hand-in-hand, through the empty village. 

They stop at the top of a grassy hill. Below them, the woods stretch out.

“I can’t go any further,” Combeferre says. “Go back the way you came, but don’t look back.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” He smiles. “I’m going to tell Yubaba that I’m quitting my apprenticeship. I have my name back, after all. I can go home, too.”

“Will I see you again?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

She hugs him, arms wrapping tight around his shoulders. He smells like a river. “I’m going to miss you.”

“So will I. Now go, and don’t look back. Your siblings are waiting for you.”

Her hand slips out of Combeferre’s as she starts down the hill. 

The grass waves in the breeze. The wind catches dandelion seeds, scattering them. 

. 

“Éponine!” Azelma calls, holding Gavroche. Éponine’s heart tightens. 

“Azelma! Gavroche!”

“Ponine!” Gavroche says, waving his little-boy hands in the air. 

“We’ve been waiting for ages,” Azelma complains.

“Well, I’m here now. Let’s go.”

There’s something in her pocket, she realizes. A pile of somethings. They’re hard under her curious fingers. 

She fishes one out, and finds a large pearl. 

For a moment, she starts to look behind her, but they have a new life to start in Paris. It doesn’t make sense to look back.

.

She smiles, humming quietly, as she steps out of the shop and onto the road. Paris is beautiful in the autumn. The leaves are starting to turn, there’s a faint hint of rain in the air, and everything seems right with the world. 

She sees the strange man in a crowd of university students. She’s not sure what it is, but something about him feels impossibly familiar—like a pair of gloves that fit just right when you find them in a trunk. Like an old song you just remembered the words to. 

Their eyes meet. He wears spectacles, but they do nothing to obscure the green of his eyes. She can see his mouth fall open in shock. 

A crowd pours out of a café, blocking her view of him. Even in her heeled boots she’s shorter than average, and he’s quickly swept out of sight. 

There are so many people in Paris. Why are there so many people in Paris?

She turns down one side street and then another, silently cursing whoever decided that Paris should be a maze of twisting and turning streets and alleyways. She doesn’t know where she’s going, doesn’t know why she’s so determined to find a strange man she made eye contact with, but she runs. 

She stops, out of breath. He’s standing at the other side of a bridge, looking just as shocked and dazed as she feels. 

It occurs to her, staring at the man across the canal, that she doesn’t actually know this man. They’ve never met. 

They each start to walk across the bridge, eyes ahead. They pass in the middle, and just before she steps off the bridge and back onto the cobbled streets, she thinks:

_I am so damn tired of being afraid._

“Hey!” she calls, turning, well aware that this could end terribly. He turns at her voice. “Don’t I know you?”

“I thought so too,” he says. His eyes are as green as a riverbed, behind his spectacles. 

 

“What’s your name?”


End file.
